June172015

How to give your kids trust issues and anxiety brought to you by privacy invading mormon Dad

See Also: How to further endanger people in abusive relationships, brought to you by privacy invading mormon Dad, with control issues.

It’s honestly like Christian Grey level micromanaging. Do you wanna fuck up your kid? Because this is how you fuck up your kid.

My parents did this to me as a teenager.

Nothing will ever match the horror of being called into your dad’s office at the age of 14 and him showing you screenshots of your own computer from the last several months.

Screenshots of private conversations with online friends.

Or records of my internet browsing history.

And then my fundamentalist christian parents asked, “do you masturbate?” because they found I had signed up for this site called “okcupid” in order to do the fun personality quizzes they had on it. And okcupid was a “sex site.”

And they would play mind games with me, pretending that they had been recording more of my activity than they actually had, but refusing to tell me how much, so I never really knew how much they actually knew, or how long they’d been spying on my computer, and I lived in constant fear of them pulling out a “WE KNOW YOU DID THIS, GOTCHA.” at any moment.

Sometimes when I left the room they would sneak onto my computer and go through anything I had left open.

I’m 23 now, and to this day I have a soul-crippling paranoia of anybody getting near my computer. Not even long term romantic partners. NOBODY touches my computer. Never ever ever ever.

Because instead of actually communicating with your children, stalk them instead to manipulate them emotionally.

This is terrifying and my parents did this to me constantly throughout my childhood. My mom hasn’t done it in the past year or so because I’ve been ‘good’ (I kind of just gave up on everything for awhile because of depression caused by my folks so I could do no wrong) and I still delete the history on the computer just in case. She still goes through my phone sometimes, though.

Phone horror story:my parents went through my phone when I was young and dating this girl, but I didn’t want my parents to know. I was afraid if they would accept me, my mom being religious, and my dad being the most important person to me. So every night, my girlfriend and I would say goodnight and “I love you”. But my parents were suspicious, took my phone, went through it, and then hid it.

They then watched me run around the house in a blind panic trying to find my phone for /hours/. I finally figured out what happened, confronted them, and was sat down for hands down the worst talk I’d ever received. They asked me if I was dating this girl. I said yes. They asked me if I was a lesbian. I said no, I’m bisexual. They then proceeded to tell me that “bisexuality isn’t real, I have to pick, it’s just a phase” ect.

And that’s my coming out story. I didn’t “come out”. I was forced to admit my sexuality under interrogation after they invaded my privacy, and then ridiculed. I have nothing to hide now, but when someone goes through my phone, I freak out. I don’t tell my family when I’m dating someone, even if I’m happy with them.

So yeah. Wanna fuck up your child for life? Wanna cause a major rift in trust between you and your kid? Go through their shit, and wondering why your kid doesn’t tell you when something’s wrong /years/ later.

Okay I don’t normally add things to posts but I’m going to tonight.

I used to be in a relationship with a cis girl; if I may remind everyone, I, also, am a cis female. I live in the bible belt of the United States and one of the most terrible places you can be in: Texas. That means I was raised with and around people who STILL believe that gays/trans/anything apart from ‘the norm’ is going to hell/condemned/disgusting.

I was crushing on this girl of mine for a couple of years, and my parents took my phone one time because I got in trouble. They’d read all of our texts. All of them. Everything. And they forbid me from ever speaking to her again and ended up taking me to “Christian” therapy. This made me unbelievably depressed and when this happened, I got back into self harm. Still, when you’re forced to grow up doing things that make you happy in secret because your parents are super consesrvative, you get sneaky. Eventually this girl and I ended up in a relationship. So I dated this girl for THREE YEARS, long distance, ENTIRELY in secret. I had to clear my text messages every 5 minutes, couldn’t EVER talk to her on the phone (except for when I finally got my car and was allowed to go our by myself, in which, I still had to be careful) and it made us both MISERABLE. If they found out we were talking not only would we not be able to again, but they wanted to place a restraining order on her just so that it would be IMPOSSIBLE for us talk again. All because they were MORTIFIED of me ‘being gay’.

And I’m not exaggerating. They would check the Verizon bills to see what numbers I’ve texted/called, would SNATCH my phone out of my and RANDOMLY and check through my messages/MSN, and I was subject to ‘random regular computer checks’. The girl I was with at this time had to pay $50 to get an area code that wasn’t the one they’d be looking for just so that we could text back and fourth without questions.

It destroyed me. It destroyed my sense of trust for my parents and even now, long after my relationship with this person has been ended and I am allowed and approved to date my current boyfriend, I still clear my texts out of pure fear and am still scared sometimes. I doubt they’d take my phone now that I’m nearly 21, but I have no idea and I can’t be too careful. I still haven’t come out to them as pansexual and probably wont ever.

If you love your children, don’t do this kind of shit to them. They’ll never trust you again.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, if you violate your child’s privacy in this way you’ll never earn their trust, you’re just creating a better liar.

This is not something your children will “understand” later; you will not be forgiven, you will not be confided in. You will create trust issues for your children for all of their future relationships. There is nothing about this that is ok.

April172015

friendly reminder that since it’s getting hot out, people of all sizes and genders can wear whatever they want to keep themselves cool and comfortable, and you are, under no circumstances, allowed to shame them or sexualize them for it.

December022012

“Kev was like my brother – we would have done anything for each other.We said that whoever died first, the other one had to wear a pink dress with green spots to the funeral – and we shook on it. It was mainly his idea and the more I think about it, I’m sure Kevin knew something was going to happen.I looked for the exact dress but couldn’t find one anywhere.I eventually picked up the green one in Primark and bought the pink pop socks to make it look even sillier. It’s what Kev would have wanted.Kev told his whole family about the pact, so I couldn’t back out. I had a word with him at the graveside and asked if he liked the color – I’m sure I could hear laughter coming out of the ground.Kev was a true hero and someone I’m proud to call my best mate.”